Wednesday 4/16

After our lecture yesterday on the ethnic minority community the ‘Roma’, today we got to experience a real Roma campo first-hand. We were joined by anthropologist Ulderico Daniele, who took the bus with us about an hour away to lead us around the campo. Visiting the site after learning about this community was a very surreal experience. The people who lived in the camp seemed a bit confused at first about why a group of American students were there, however we were greeted by children at the gate and they started to follow us around. A social worker on the campsite gave us some more background information on the camp’s population; around 1,000 people live on this tiny property together. The Roma who live on this campo are from a wide range of places, and in particular a large community comes from Bosnia. We started to make our way around the camp, walking slowly and stopping to say hi to kids and adults on the way. Everybody was extremely friendly, waving and yelling Ciao! Our small group got bigger and bigger as the tour went on because the children wanted to tag along. I definitely wasn’t able to wrap my mind around the rough living conditions until I was able to see it in person. The containers they live in are tiny and worn out from the elements; and there is scrap metal and garbage everywhere. I started to realize after a while that all of the children in the campo that we saw had not gone to school that day, which made me sad that school isn’t a consistent possibility for them. Visiting this camp was eye opening to say the least, and I am really grateful that we were some of the only outsiders who able to experience it. This day was humbling and will definitely be one of the days I remember the most.

Madeleine